


Aftershock

by passing-fanciful (kageygirl)



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-08
Updated: 2014-10-08
Packaged: 2018-02-20 10:27:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2425334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageygirl/pseuds/passing-fanciful
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, it takes a little while for everything to settle down afterwards.</p>
<p>Episode tag for 4x02, "White Out."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftershock

Killian's the only other person still awake when the laughter starts.

She's bone-weary and aching, muscles weak from shivering, and so it comes off as another round of the shakes. She feels it quaking in her chest, though, and knows it's not just a memory of cold.

(Everyone else is sacked out already, in beds both proper and makeshift. Emma knows she should sleep, too, but the idea is equally alluring and abhorrent; she came so very close to never waking up. Her memories are muddled, but she thinks Elsa's magic might have called her awake, a tremulous uncertain feeling that resonated all too well with Emma.) 

Her breath scatters, unsteady, across Killian's neck, and his arm tightens around her, fingers restlessly kneading her shoulder.

"Champagne, huh?" she murmurs, trying to focus on something, anything, else.

"Sorry?" His voice is quiet, so quiet, but she drinks it in, trying to quell the shaking.

"Champagne. For our second date," she says, shifting just far enough away to look up at him. The tenderness in his eyes catches at something in her chest, almost anchoring down the trembling there. She cracks a smile (maybe literally; her lips are chapped as hell) and says, "That's pretty special. If you're not careful, I'm going to start to think you _are_ sentimental, after all."

His hand slides across her back, curling into the hair behind her neck. "Perhaps I am, at that," he says, his answering smile warmer than the space heater. Under the mass of blankets and quilts, she rubs her hand against her breastbone, trying to tamp down the laughter.

It doesn't work; she balls her hand into a fist, pressing harder.

Her thoughts are starting to get hard to hold onto, and she clings to what she can. "You know, you didn't bring me anything for our first date, either."

His hand strokes across her back again, soothing, almost but not quite enough. "That's what you get when you surprise a man. With a little warning, things could have been different."

"Hey, the snow monster was a surprise to me, too." It comes out too fast, not flippant enough, a quaver in her voice.

His chin drops and his eyes turn sharp, searching her face. "Are you all right?"

"No," she says, and shocks herself, but the honesty feels so, so important, in this quiet little bubble, this pocket out of time. She drops her forehead to his neck and stops fighting it, letting the tremors take over, panting her voiceless laughter into his chest.

"Ah," he whispers, and presses a kiss to the crown of her head. "Just breathe, Emma. It'll pass."

He holds her steady while she tries to get a grip, but she's got no control. "Sorry, I just--can't stop." 

"You will," he says, and squeezes her upper arm, with that same hand that hasn't stopped touching her since the cave. "When you're ready, you will."

He holds her tight while she breathes it out, the last vestiges of her reserve. She no longer needs to be strong to keep from freaking out Henry, or Elsa, or her parents. 

She no longer needs to be strong in front of Killian, either, because when she's weak, he'll catch her.

(She's known that for a while now, if she's honest with herself, but the fighting's gone on for so long that she had to learn to _stop_.)

Eventually, the hysterics taper off, and she draws a deep breath, her first in a while. That's when the scales tip, and sleep suddenly seems like the best idea in the world.

He chuckles, and she feels it under her cheek, realizes how completely she's slumped against him. "Let's get you to bed, shall we?"

She makes it up the stairs, technically under her own power, though he probably takes at least half her weight (and the weight of the blankets she's brought along). He sits her on the edge of the bed and kneels to take off her boots, but looks up when she slides her fingers behind his head.

"You should probably stick around," she murmurs, toying with his hair. "The last time we split up, bad things happened." _The last time I walked away from you,_ she doesn't say, but his expression is soft and his eyes are gentle and she thinks maybe, just maybe, he forgives her.

"Besides, I might get cold again," she adds. Probably overdoing it, but she's just not ready to lose this yet.

And neither is he, if the smile he gives her is any indication. "Best not to risk it," he says, and leans in to kiss her, leaving her breathless once again.


End file.
